Gettin’ Down on Friday: Bieber’s Baby No Longer Most Disliked Video on YouTube

Yesterday we reported that Justin Bieber’s video Baby has become the first video ever to surpass 500 million views on YouTube. The flip side of that fame, though, was that Bieber was by far the most disliked video on the site – having received ten times more dislike votes than what appeared to be the second-most disliked video (also by Bieber).

Then, everything changed. Rebecca Black’s video Friday was burning up the charts – but especially the Dislike chart we created by extracting numbers from across the site. Today what seemed inevitable finally occurred – Rebecca Black’s Friday surpassed Justin Bieber’s Baby to become the most-disliked video of all time on YouTube. Friday currently has 1,187,200 dislikes – but that number has been climbing fast for days. It’s hard to know what this all means – but surely it means something. Unless it means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Watch and listen to the new Anti-Queen of Broadcasting Yourself below and think about it. Don’t be too mean though, this young woman is just 13 years old.

Below, Rebecca Black’s Friday. It is generally believed that the video was not intended to be a parody. It has blown up in a mere two weeks. If you listen to it a hundred times, as I have felt obliged to in the last challenging 24 hours of reporting on this story, it grows on you a little.

Rolling Stone’s Matthew Perpetua says in his article Why Rebecca Black’s Much-Mocked Viral Hit ‘Friday’ Is Actually Good (via) that Black’s vocals have “a peculiar tonality that inadvertently highlights the absurdity of boilerplate pop lyrics,” and that it “sounds unlike anything else in pop music.” He says Black ends up “sounding like a distinct singer with an alluring sort of anti-charisma.” I concur!

And below, the fallen King, Justin Bieber. In all seriousness, if you haven’t seen the recent Justin Bieber movie in 3D you should.